2005 Broadway
2006 North American tour
International and regional productions
2014 West End
2015/16 UK Tour

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is a 2004 comedy musical, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek and a book by Jeffrey Lane; it is based on the 1988 film of the same name. The musical premiered on Broadway in 2005 and ran for 626 performances despite mixed reviews. It has since received tours and international productions. A West End production opened in 2014 to generally warm reviews.

A North American national Equity tour launched on August 4, 2006 with Norbert Leo Butz reprising his role as Freddy, alongside Tom Hewitt as Lawrence.[1] The tour ended on August 19, 2007. A 25-city non-Equity tour, with Jamie Jackson as Lawrence and Doug Thompson as Freddy, began on September 25, 2007 in Dayton, Ohio, with its final performance on March 23, 2008, in Memphis, Tennessee.[citation needed]

The UK Tour is starring Michael Praed as Lawrence, Noel Sullivan as Freddy, Carley Stenson as Christine and Mark Benton as Andre, Gary Wilmot will then takeover the role in September 2015. They will be joined by Geraldine Fitzgerald as Muriel. The tour will open in Birmingham at the New Alexandra Theatre on 5th May 2015. Completing the cast are: Emma Caffrey, Andy Conaghan, Phoebe Coupe, Soophia Faroughi, Jonny Godbold, Orla Gormley, Patrick Harper, Justin Lee-Jones, Jordan Livesey, Lisa Mathieson, Andy Rees, Freya Rowley, Regan Shepherd, Kevin Stephen-Jones, Katie Warsop and Jenny Wickham.

The musical opens at a lively Casino near the French Riviera ("Overture"). Inside the casino, con-artist Lawrence Jameson is tricking wealthy women out of their money with his "bodyguard" Andre ("Give Them What They Want"). One such woman named Muriel and a few other women express their devotion and amorous feelings for Lawrence ("What Was a Woman To Do"). Andre warns Lawrence about a con-artist, known as “The Jackal”. While on a train, Lawrence watches an American named Freddy Benson swindle money out of a woman, but making much less money than Lawrence does. Lawrence ends up bringing Freddy to his lavish mansion, where Freddy envies how Lawrence has made a living out of swindling. Then he talks of all the things he wants when he’s rich ("Great Big Stuff"). Freddy asks Lawrence to “show [him] his ways.” Andre thinks Freddy is unworthy of Lawrence's attention, and compares Freddy to a ("Chimp in a Suit"). Lawrence doesn’t think much of it until Jolene Oakes, a woman he's swindled, informs him at gunpoint that the two of them will be getting married and moving to Oklahoma ("Oklahoma?"). Lawrence decides to use Freddy’s help. Freddy poses as Lawrence’s repulsive brother Ruprecht ("All About Ruprecht"). Seeing that Lawrence plans to make Ruprecht a large part of their life together, Jolene calls off the wedding.

Lawrence begins to think that there isn’t enough room in town for both him and Freddy. They make a deal: The first to get $50,000 out of a woman gets to stay in town, while the other has to leave. Immediately after making the deal the arrival of “The American Soap Queen, Christine Colgate" is announced ("Here I Am"). Both con men decide to make her the target of their scams. Freddy creates an alias as a man paralyzed from the waist down. She and Freddy become deep in conversation and he says there is a therapist, Dr. Shuffhausen, who can help him, but he doesn’t have the money that Dr. Shuffhausen charges, $50,000. Christine tells him to keep his hopes up ("Nothing Is Too Wonderful To Be True"). She tells Freddy she has the money to pay for the therapist, as Freddy had hoped ("The Miracle"). She then tells him that Dr. Shuffhausen is at the hotel. Freddy is shocked when he sees it is none other than Lawrence.

After a quick reintroduction ("Entr'acte"), Lawrence performs several torturous tests on Freddy’s legs who has to endure them silently while in front of Christine ("Ruffhousin' Mit Shuffhausen"). In the side show Muriel meets Andre and the two fall in love ("Like Zis/Like Zat"). Lawrence is trying in every effort to get close to Christine ("The More We Dance"), when he realizes that Christine is not as rich as they thought. Lawrence tells Freddy that he thinks they should call off the deal. Freddy reluctantly agrees the bet will be changed to whether or not he sleeps with her, then hires two sailors to kidnap Lawrence so that he can get Christine alone.

Freddy meets back with Christine at the hotel where he tells her he needs motivation to get out of his chair. She says she’ll be his motivation ("Love is My Legs"). She sits on the bed till he is finally able to stand up out of his chair and walk to her on the bed (where he "accidentally" falls on top of her in exhaustion), when Lawrence shows up and it turns out to be a test planned by him and Christine. Lawrence has the same two sailors kidnap Freddy while he takes Christine to the train station so she can leave ("Love Sneaks In"). Freddy shows up, having escaped the sailors too late to get to Christine.

The next day Freddy meets Christine back at the hotel who says she couldn’t leave “without seeing you again.” ("Son of Great Big Stuff") The two get in bed together before the scene is switched to Lawrence’s mansion where Christine shows up, telling him tearfully how she came back to see Freddy, how they made love, and then when she woke up all her money was gone: “I’m beginning to think he was never really paralyzed.” Out of remorse, Lawrence packs 50 thousand dollars in a suitcase and tells her to take it. Christine takes it, but returns and gives him back the suitcase saying, ‘I’ll have something so much better to remember you by” before leaving.

A few minutes later Freddy shows up in his underwear. Lawrence is angry at him for taking Christine’s money. Freddy, however, claims that they never made love at all; they were about to when she knocked him out. When he woke up all his belongings were gone. Lawrence then opens up the suitcase to find the money gone, replaced by Freddy’s clothes and a note that reads, “Goodbye boys. It was fun! Love, 'The Jackal'”, thus revealing that she knew about their scam the entire time, and instead ended up scamming them ("The Reckoning"). A while later Christine returns to Lawrence's chateau, bringing a group of other people with her. The guys finally admit the scam was a good adventure for them ("Dirty Rotten Number") and they hatch a scheme to scam the crowd of people together in the "Finale".

For the first national tour of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, the number "Give Them What They Want" was replaced with (according to Yazbek) a more suitable opening number, "The Only Game in Town".[citation needed]

The line in "Give Them What They Want" which mentions David Niven is a reference to Niven's starring role as Laurence Jameson in the original film Bedtime Story.[citation needed]

The West End production revises the material still further. "Give Them What They Want" is restored in place of "The Only Game in Town", though it takes place in Laurence's dressing room and several lines are changed. "Chimp in a Suit" has been cut along with Freddie's verse of "Nothing is too Wonderful to be True". The book and lyrics have also been tweaked to Anglicise both some of the characters and references.[11]

The Broadway reviews were mixed. Ben Brantley of The New York Times compared the musical with the 2001 hit musical The Producers, also an adaptation of a film about two con men, and found it lacking in confidence and energy. He praised Butz but felt that the musical's "ingredients appear to have been assembled according to an oft-checked shopping list for a borrowed recipe. There is equally little evidence of ... chemistry between its two perpetrators."[17]John Simon at the New York Magazine review mostly liked the book and lyrics, as well as the direction and cast, but found the music merely serviceable. He termed the show "a bit vulgar, a bit hokey, a bit for the tired businessman, but often funny, not infrequently clever, with a nice sprinkling of the outrageous".[18]

The West End reviews were generally favorable. The Sunday Times critic called it "a scandalous delight".[19]The Times found it merely "likeable", giving it three stars out of five and reserving most of its praise for Kingsley.[20]The Telegraph gave it four stars, finding it more fun than the film and praising the book, cast and direction.[21]The Independent also judged it worth three stars but liked the score, which it found witty, more than the book, which it thought was lacking in depth, comparing it unfavorably with The Producers.[22]Michael Billington at The Guardian awarded four stars. He enjoyed the show's nostalgic fun and "escapist fantasy".[23] The London Evening Standard also awarded four stars, also highlighting Kingsley's contribution and concluding: "There’s plenty of razzle-dazzle yet also a wry knowingness."[24] The Daily Mail also awarded three stars.[25] The Financial Times was more critical, giving the show only two stars and lamenting that the songs failed to carry the story and characters forward. It found the show silly, but not "in a good way ... [It] determinedly eradicated every atom other than the feel good. Any instance of underplaying may conceivably result in docked wages. Basic theatrical continuity goes out the window, as characters sing in verbal idioms and even in accents entirely alien to their spoken lines".[26]